The newly invented competition is not about passion, but about greed, argues Brian Reade, and for the US, the game has only just begun
You may have failed to notice that there’s something going on in America called the Club World Cup of football.
It’s not the club football you’re used to seeing in the Premier League, where two psyched-up teams go like the clappers for 90 blood-curdling minutes in front of packed, passionate stadiums.
This newly invented competition is quite the opposite. Take Chelsea ’s game against Los Angeles FC on Monday in Atlanta, when there were so many gaps in the stands you could have played a five-a-side game as 50,000 tickets went unsold. FIFA’s latest month-long, out-of-season, vanity exercise comprises hopeless mismatches between minnows and giants and slow-paced bore-a-thons in the searing heat.
Which leaves European players wishing their knackered bodies and minds were recovering on a beach after a gruelling nine-month season before training starts for another one next month.
Like the recent equally pointless and anaemic England games, the only reason footballers and fans are being denied a vital summer break from the sport is that those in charge of it are hopelessly consumed with greed. Spy a blank date in the calendar and a rich, relatively-untapped market like the USA, and they will pull out all the stops to squeeze more sweat from the players and money from the audiences. And, sadly, it’s only going to get worse.
When US tycoon Todd Boehly bought Chelsea for £4billion in 2022, he told a private equity conference: “The global footprint of soccer is really underdeveloped” and needs “an American mentality” to fully realise its financial possibilities. Boehly is just another Yank moneyman who sussed that the earning potential of American football had been maxed out and the hugely-popular English Premier League was the certain route to unlocking sport’s global riches.
Next season 11 Premier League clubs will be run by Americans, and when it reaches 14, which it soon will, they will run the show as that is the number required to rewrite the rules. Which they will swiftly do.
And thus the top echelon of English football will become a closed shop run by, and for, US hedge funds. Looking at what they have already hinted at there’s every chance relegation will be scrapped, eliminating financial jeopardy and demolishing the 136-year-old pyramid that sees money flow down to the lower leagues and grass roots.
You can expect rounds of Premier League games played in America, or even a global day of games spread across the world’s different time zones. Domestic kick-off times will be changed to suit global audiences and a cup final could be played in Baltimore or Beijing where, for one night, the teams who, for example, played in last season’s FA Cup final, could be renamed The Crystaldelphia Eagles and the Manchester Dolphins.
I wouldn’t bet against the two top teams in the league eventually being forced into a Superbowl -style finale, with cheerleaders, Taylor Swift, tailgate parties and adverts popping up during stoppages where sponsors announce “this substitution break is brought to you by StayHard erectile dysfunction pills”. And any complaint from the paying fans whose life revolves around following their team, will not register.
They will simply be told that the Premier League is now a US-owned, blue-chip, global brand like McDonald’s or Disney and, like Coca-Cola, you old school, legacy dudes will just have to suck it up. Have a nice day, y’all.
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